Why the Chechen President Released His Statement About the Boston Bombers via Instagram

Now, it's not weird at all for a politician to make an announcement via social media. But Instagram?

April 19, 2013, 4:00pm

The country if not half the world is on edge Friday morning after a deadly all-night chase through Cambridge and Watertown left one of the Boston bombing suspects dead and one at large. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old immigrant from Kyrgyzstan, is the suspect on the loose, and his apparent ties with Chechnya are stirring up the region's struggle for attention over the course of the past few decades. The predominantly Muslim region in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia has been fighting for its independence since the fall of the Soviet Union. It's been a bloody fight, too.

Though it remains unclear if Tsarnaev and his late brother Tamerlan were motivated by the Chechen cause, the Republic of Chechnya suddenly finds itself front and center in the American media. Obviously, Chechnya’s president, Ramzan Kadyrov had to say something. Not so obviously, he chose Instagram as his outlet of choice. After condemning the attacks, Kadyrov says:

Any attempt to draw a connection between Chechnya and Tsarnaevs — if they are guilty — is futile. They were raised in the United States, and their attitudes and beliefs were formed there. It is necessary to seek the roots of this evil in America. The whole world must struggle against terrorism — that we know better than anyone else. We hope for the recovery of all the victims, and we mourn with the Americans.

Now, it's not weird at all for a politician to make an announcement or release a statement via social media. They do it all the time. President Obama will tweet something big to his 100 million followers — or whatever the count is up to these days — or Sarah Palin will say something dumb on Facebook. But it's not so normal to see that kind of thing on Instagram, home of moody filters and pictures of feet.

I wondered aloud (read: on Twitter) why and how the Chechen President decided to take to Instagram for what may be the most read announcement he's ever made, at least to the American public anyway. Rosie Gray from BuzzFeed shouted back, very matter of factly, "He's big on Instagram." I checked: over 116,000 followers. "Uses it all the time, mostly for selfies," she added.

It's true. The Guardian did a whole feature of Kadyrov and his Insta-love. This passage sort of says it all:

The cuddly oversharing appears inconsistent with his reputation as a ruthless dictator who suffers no political dissent. Yet it is in keeping with the massive personality cult Kadyrov has built in Chechnya, where many buildings and roads – usually named after his father and predecessor, Akhmad Kadyrov – bear his image.

"It's actually a very useful thing," Ramzan Kadyrov said of Instagram in the Chechen capital, Grozny, on Monday. "I now have the opportunity to monitor public opinion in real time."

Here are some highlights from Kadyrov's account:

He's a journalist, too.